00:18 - Hello and welcome to the shops of Patrick J.

00:20 - Murphy and Associates, Pipe Organ Builders.

00:23 - We are a full service pipe organ restoration

00:26 - building tuning and service company located in Stowe,

00:30 - which is a suburb of Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

00:34 - I'm pleased you can join us today.

00:36 - We're going to go through the shop.

00:37 - We're going to show a couple of products that are under way right now.

00:41 - We have three clients.

00:42 - You'll see one, which is a new organ

00:46 - in the early stages of construction for a client in Houston.

00:49 - We'll also be showing you some general repairs for a client

00:52 - here in the nearby in Pennsylvania.

00:56 - And lastly, we'll be showing a restoration of an instrument from 1898

01:02 - that is been brought in for a complete factory restoration

01:05 - to its original falsifications.

01:08 - You'll see all of the

01:09 - processes that go into this craft.

01:13 - We've been in business about 1987.

01:16 - And you'll see that we're approximately nine full time employees.

01:20 - We've been doing this craft in this operation

01:25 - for, say, since 1987, 80, 87.

01:31 - And we'll be happy to show you all the skill sets that go on

01:36 - with what we do here.

01:39 - So we walk through the shop.

01:40 - The first room we're here is called the erecting room,

01:43 - essentially where every project is completed.

01:46 - It is normally set up in this room to be tested before a shipment.

01:51 - One project I've mentioned about was an 1898 restoration.

01:55 - This organ was built

01:55 - originally in Boston and is for a client in the Philadelphia area.

02:00 - And what you have before you is the key desk

02:02 - and the window chests for this organ.

02:06 - And Matt Farrell, who is the shop foreman, is currently making

02:11 - replacing small action parts.

02:14 - We refer to these kind of as Shepherd talks.

02:16 - And you can kind of see by the shape of it why we call that a shepherd hook.

02:20 - All the old ones were steel, and after 130 years or so,

02:24 - they get replaced here with brass.

02:27 - So each one is handmade.

02:30 - We have a fixture which makes the shape and the Winchesters upside down.

02:35 - And what's happened is that all of the valves

02:39 - inside of this wooden charts have been recovered with new material.

02:42 - We use mostly leather and felt

02:46 - that's one of our primary materials, and

02:50 - each of these hooks and pull downs are being installed.

02:54 - And Mack can probably tell you the process that goes on through it.

02:58 - I would

02:59 - say we over here, we take a of a piece of brass

03:04 - and then with the six here we actually have the hand

03:07 - make a new a new hook and in style that ends up like this

03:13 - and then very carefully thread it through a hole

03:16 - that's not a whole lot larger than the wire itself.

03:21 - And once we get that through, then we make the final connection inside.

03:27 - And these these two chests are

03:31 - about 80%

03:33 - restored.

03:35 - There's still some more work to be done on each of them.

03:39 - This is this just like that is upside down.

03:41 - This chest is actually right side up.

03:45 - And you can see the difference where

03:47 - we still do a lot of restoration work to the topside.

03:51 - So that's that's one way next task is going to be do this.

03:55 - So you can see that the chest has not been clean.

03:57 - This essentially is the toe board.

03:59 - And the pipes, you can see will sit on top of these holes

04:03 - and they're held vertically.

04:04 - And then these are these wind chests are actually the word complies.

04:09 - There's wind inside them, there's air inside them.

04:12 - So as the organist plays the note air is

04:16 - emitted to each individual pipe upon demand.

04:20 - So there's thousands and thousands

04:22 - of moving parts in this instrument that have to be all addressed,

04:27 - whether it be adjusted, restored or replaced with new.

04:32 - But this instrument has laughter,

04:34 - as I say, well over a hundred years, and that's because of the fine manufacture

04:38 - and the fact that all the components in this instrument are renewable.

04:42 - That's why we can continue to have this instrument service

04:46 - the client for another hundred years.

04:49 - So, as I say, Matt will be continuing on in addition

04:52 - to putting those in all of the classically material

04:57 - in the instrument or renewed with, again, leather.

05:01 - We use one of our materials

05:04 - and felt in various places to try to keep all the mechanical components,

05:09 - keep them from being noisy because what it comes down to

05:16 - pipe organs or course a wind instrument

05:19 - and you have to have a way to regulate the wind.

05:23 - So this is the original bellows from 1898, and it is on its side.

05:27 - Normally it's horizontal, but in this case it's vertical.

05:31 - And you know, it's had a long life.

05:33 - There's some duct tape on it, which was used to keep it patched up.

05:37 - We'll be restoring this bellows over the summer.

05:40 - All of this leather has to come off and it works

05:43 - like an accordion, as you can see, stores of wind in it.

05:46 - And as the blower comes on plates and that we pressure on top of it.

05:52 - And when the organ is in play, this regulates the wind,

05:57 - much like the lungs.

05:58 - And your body works to very much the same way.

06:01 - So this controls and regulates so that the wind being blown into

06:05 - the pipes is even and well regulated so that you don't get a quivering sound.

06:10 - So this is what happens after over a hundred years.

06:13 - And as I say, when we redo it, it will be good for another 100 years.

06:19 - So we're going to continue our tour through the shop.

06:22 - And a couple of things as we walk through.

06:24 - Here are wooden pipes, organ pipes.

06:27 - Approximately 80 to 90% of organ pipes are metal,

06:31 - and they can be a combination of tin and led we call spot of metal.

06:35 - Anything larger than about five feet in length is usually zinc,

06:39 - but wood pipes are also a very important component.

06:43 - Wood pipes provide a lot of bass tone, and that's

06:46 - usually how we use them in this situation.

06:49 - And right here now, we have what are called good deck pipes.

06:53 - And there's Stoppard.

06:55 - We're going to talk about that in a little while.

06:56 - I want to show how we use stoppers, but these stoppers are essentially

07:00 - they double the speaking length of the pipe,

07:03 - So they go into the end of the pipe and they actually affect the tone,

07:08 - which we can demonstrate later.

07:09 - But all of the stoppers have to have leather gaskets put on there

07:13 - so that they're airtight and over time,

07:16 - stoppers, leather like our skin tends to disintegrate

07:22 - for about 100 years or so, sometimes sooner.

07:25 - But in this case, we're redoing the leather on these pipes

07:29 - over in the corner.

07:30 - I want to point out some of the larger pipes of this 1898

07:33 - restoration we're doing.

07:35 - These are what's called the open Di Payson Pipes.

07:37 - And these are kind of pretty much the largest pipes in most

07:41 - given pipe organs or sixth largest pipe of 16 feet in length.

07:45 - And they're made out of poplar.

07:47 - Those pipes, again, as I say, we're at 1898,

07:50 - so they're they're in good condition.

07:51 - And as you see there, they are ready to be back installed to the organ.

07:56 - They've been restored and ready for use.

07:59 - So we might do that and we'll just continue walking into our woodshop.

08:04 - So we continue our tour through the shop.

08:06 - We come to

08:06 - a very critical part of our operation, and that is the woodshop.

08:10 - Not only do we have some very highly critical tools,

08:15 - we have some very knowledgeable and skilled craftsmen here doing some work.

08:20 - And so we're going to take a walk through of what they're doing,

08:24 - and we've got a couple little stations set up and we're going to see two things

08:28 - of the restoration work we're discussing.

08:31 - We're also going to see what goes into the building of a new organ.

08:35 - So right now we have a new pipe organ under construction for a client in Texas,

08:39 - and we'll see some of the beginning stages of what goes into that.

08:43 - So let's go this way.

08:53 - So here we have John is refurbishing

08:56 - some of the mechanical key action for the 1898 restoration.

09:00 - And this is a part of the organ

09:04 - that is all part of the key action

09:07 - where the organist plays and you can see is a lot of multiple.

09:11 - So it's usually one piece multiplied.

09:13 - So that's what goes in a pipe.

09:14 - Organ building is a single design,

09:18 - but copied on a multiple scale.

09:21 - So every piece has to be addressed, every piece must be handle,

09:24 - every piece has to be looked at.

09:25 - This is the first time it's been a part since this construction

09:29 - and the organ has had

09:32 - a fairly hard life.

09:34 - And so what John is doing is he's doing some modifications to overcome

09:38 - some of the wear in the instrument to the it will last another a good long time.

09:43 - So, John, why don't you just explain for the people here what you're doing

09:49 - so this came to us as it's Pat, are you here in very bad shape?

09:54 - So some of the pieces needed to be replaced, like this one here.

09:58 - Well, other ones,

10:00 - I glued some pieces on the end to strengthen it

10:03 - so we can get another 100 years out of it.

10:08 - All these pieces that were referred to as this unit

10:11 - in a mechanical action pipe organ referred to as a back fall, back fall.

10:15 - Think of as like a teeter totter or a seesaw.

10:17 - That's what a back four does.

10:19 - It transfers the key action from one direction to another.

10:21 - Direction like this.

10:23 - And these pieces are made out of either pine or spruce.

10:28 - I'm not sure exactly of the species at the moment, but what we're replacing

10:31 - the ends here, we're modifying or strengthening the ends with cherry.

10:35 - Cherry is a good close.

10:36 - Green wood is very plentiful in Pennsylvania, and it's a hard wood.

10:40 - And so it's going to help to strengthen

10:45 - the critical component of the back fall,

10:49 - where it is currently its weakest due to its use and age.

10:53 - So every piece has to be handled, sanded,

10:57 - drilled and shaped so that it looks consistent.

11:02 - Consistency is a very key component in any organ building project.

11:07 - You have to do good work consistently.

11:17 - Okay, so here we come, in over here we're going to see Richard.

11:20 - Richard is now building the beginnings of a wind chest

11:23 - for a client, a new organ in Texas.

11:26 - And we use a lot of poplar in our wind truss construction and our wind chills.

11:32 - Construction is comprised of, as I say, a solid poplar frame.

11:36 - And then the other key components of the organ are is poplar.

11:41 - But it's a glue up like a butcher block.

11:43 - We use this method primarily.

11:46 - It goes has good stability of material.

11:50 - When it's in the field.

11:51 - We deal with organs that are who say, if you seen 100 years old

11:55 - and we learn a lot from doing restorations of 100 year old organs,

11:58 - why they last long and we want our product to last as least as long as well.

12:03 - So we do a lot of care and extra details that go into making this instrument

12:09 - more robust because in churches it's you can have a natural environment,

12:15 - you can have tremendous central heating systems which causes

12:18 - wood to split and crack due to its dryness.

12:22 - And so we have to be very mindful of these expansion

12:25 - contractions mechanically, but we've had very good

12:31 - performance rates of our product in the field.

12:34 - So, Richard, here is you'll see he's going up

12:37 - some of the divider boards of of this Winchester.

12:42 - And lastly, when I come over to even though we do

12:45 - a lot of tried and tried and true

12:49 - craft style components in our work, we still use modern technology where

12:53 - it serves us, especially when it comes to doing things on a repetitive rate.

12:58 - So Mark over here has program.

13:01 - We have a see and see router, a small unit, and

13:05 - he is going to be drilling what's called toe boards.

13:08 - And if you look at the board, look at the end grain, you'll see

13:11 - it's a butcher block, which means that it's the poplar

13:15 - which has been sawn, then turn on its quarter and then glued up

13:20 - because this is a critical component in the organ construction.

13:23 - We want that board which is thick to be stable and robust,

13:28 - especially in climates where it's extra drying.

13:32 - So what Mark's going to do now is that all these holes

13:37 - that go into a toe board have all been laid out on a computer.

13:40 - And then now he's going to go

13:42 - through the process of what goes into drawing those holes.

13:46 - We still drill these holes by hand, but on a repetitive nature

13:49 - we find that the CMC router is a better job.

14:34 - Pipe organ building includes

14:36 - service and tuning and refurbishment of other instruments.

14:40 - What we have here are some simple repairs for a local client near the shop here

14:45 - and the tasks that we be describing

14:47 - also are repacking the stoppers we discussed to stoppers early on.

14:51 - They are critical to tuning the pipe and to creating the proper tone.

14:56 - Stoppers have leather on the ends, which creates

14:59 - a solid, airtight seal or gasket,

15:03 - and over time the leather deteriorates and needs to be replaced.

15:07 - So Matt Jones here is applying

15:12 - new leather and gasket material.

15:15 - You want to tell us what materials are using in the application

15:19 - as you do each one?

15:20 - Just describe for us what the process as you do each one of the process,

15:30 - you get a a clean stopper.

15:34 - You have to see about fitting the leather

15:36 - in the place you're

15:40 - to see how tight

15:43 - the leather is

15:46 - with the new leather that's going in a little seal.

15:54 - So as you did that,

15:57 - if it was too loose, this is a little bit loose.

16:00 - We had more add more and more leather, just like home.

16:06 - So once that is done, you can pack it out.

16:13 - Then you have to add the leather

16:19 - trim, trim the leather around

16:22 - for all four sides of the stopper.

16:27 - The leather we're using here is called split Sky.

16:31 - The split slide sky, the leather, which is

16:36 - means that the skin was taken off of the outside as it is to me.

16:40 - The leather on the inside for a more.

16:43 - These are for the glue, the stick. We use

16:48 - high glue

16:51 - to glue.

16:53 - So you add the the glue to the leather,

16:58 - to the stopper,

17:02 - and then

17:10 - then the leather to the end.

17:16 - Turn those later once, once the blues set

17:23 - so that they can fit in

17:37 - so that they'll fit the dry.

17:39 - Once it's dried, then we turn around the edges and see here

17:45 - all along this trimmed and cut and cut

17:49 - and cut so that there's no sharp edges.

17:53 - Then they can be fitted into the end

17:57 - of the plate

18:00 - moisture.

18:01 - You're

18:03 - not really sure that one,

18:09 - but so now before you, before we put it in,

18:18 - we also add

18:19 - some Vaseline on the edge of the stopper here.

18:23 - It helps to

18:25 - make it easier to move once once the leather gets set over time

18:37 - is a service

18:41 - that goes in.

18:44 - They will be able to move it with their hands

18:48 - within it's most tight fit

18:52 - so that just like that and

18:55 - blow through it

18:59 - and that's how it sounds

19:05 - with the stopper in

19:08 - just lastly, we're going to come into the pipe shop.

19:16 - There are two components in the pipe shop we're going to share today.

19:20 - What you'll see before you on the table are brand new organ pipes

19:23 - that have been manufactured for us.

19:25 - We don't make pipes here primarily because of the complexity in casting,

19:31 - but every pipe has a length that specific every pipe has a dimension

19:36 - that is specific, and that's what we certainly give to our suppliers.

19:39 - So we just took a shipment of new pipes that you'll see here and Chris

19:43 - to discussed briefly here about a repair he's going to do to a

19:47 - what's called tuning scroll.

19:49 - This is from our restoration project.

19:52 - Go ahead.

19:52 - The tuning show's been in place because it's been damaged

19:58 - and we're going to

20:00 - take the old the old one out using a blowtorch.

20:04 - And I have a new piece

20:07 - already formed, which is to be sized up.

20:11 - And today's the

20:13 - first off,

20:17 - we just like three blocks of steel.

20:19 - So we're feeling so

20:59 - great,

21:03 - as you can see, very quick

21:05 - and very simple method of

21:09 - removing the old pipe.

21:12 - And then we just

21:17 - clean the interior of the grill.

21:18 - And what we have

21:22 - left is

21:25 - the old window.

21:28 - Now what we do next is either turn this round on the floor.

21:33 - So we put it

21:37 - on this aluminum bar

21:40 - to keep the pipe

21:43 - from moving around when we're working on it.

21:46 - And our new

21:48 - piece of metal, which I cut out,

21:55 - but we slide it down

22:00 - inside,

22:01 - it's actually bigger

22:04 - than the slot slots.

22:05 - And then we take the pointing tool

22:10 - and when the new face has,

22:28 - I don't know whether you can

22:29 - see the lines on it

22:32 - just down the edges, but then we

22:36 - as we

22:38 - cut the metal

22:44 - to size

23:12 - for one well, should be

23:13 - that should fit inside the actual slot

23:17 - and we just

23:27 - and there we have

23:30 - the fitment

23:32 - within the pipe

23:35 - actually is to prepare the edges

23:40 - which we use

23:43 - is basically a wood scraper.

23:46 - And seeing as this is a very soft metal,

23:51 - we can just

24:03 - scrape the edges

24:14 - and we have a clean edge

24:18 - for taking the solver

24:23 - and through the bottom edge this way.

24:35 - And that is

24:37 - the actual scroll pad.

24:40 - Now what we have to do

24:42 - is the

24:45 - exact same thing on the sides

24:49 - of this metal.

24:51 - Now, this material is the same, so it's a bit harder,

24:56 - but the same

25:03 - same metal, but

25:38 - and now we have

25:41 - completely clean edges

25:43 - and just to

25:47 - protect the edges,

25:50 - we use

25:53 - some masking tape

25:58 - which literally

25:59 - just stops the spread of the solver

26:02 - onto where you do not want it to go

26:18 - like that.

26:22 - So we have to put it back

26:29 - on and go

26:34 - check the footprint again.

26:41 - But that

26:44 - and then we have to

26:46 - use a small ring flux,

26:48 - which is basically two counters can relax

26:53 - and we have to

26:59 - do the edge is making sure

27:01 - that you touch these edges

27:05 - as little as possible.

27:20 - Now comes the

27:24 - the array, which is basically just normal

27:30 - total also,

28:01 - the idea

28:04 - is to just

28:11 - tuck it in place to begin with

28:18 - and then

28:20 - we take the solver

28:28 - and we run around the killing

29:03 - regulations,

29:13 - making sure everything is nice in the flat.

30:15 - So we proceed through the pipe shop.

30:17 - We mention that pipes which are being repurposed,

30:21 - either restored or for new instrument.

30:24 - We're showing new pipes and old pipes.

30:25 - Old pipes get cleaned straight to new tuning collars installed.

30:30 - New pipes, on the other hand, is a whole different process.

30:32 - So we have a lot of new pipes here.

30:34 - And this is Megan.

30:35 - Meg is going to discuss briefly how you actually go through voicing a pipe.

30:40 - So Megan's voice are here.

30:42 - We're in the voicing room.

30:44 - This is the last stop on and pipe organ pipe

30:47 - when it becomes from a piece of metal into a musical instrument.

30:53 - So right here in front of me,

30:54 - I have a new range of pipes that we're going to put into a new pipe organ.

30:59 - As mentioned before, we don't make pipes here.

31:02 - We order all our new pipe work and these are from a company

31:05 - called Shires in the UK.

31:08 - So a lot of this is already predetermined

31:11 - how big the pipe is, what the mouth with already is.

31:15 - So when it gets to me, I know what parameters

31:19 - I want to change to make it speak the note that it's going to speak.

31:22 - One of those parameters is the distance

31:25 - from this lower lip here to this upper lip here

31:29 - and how I determine that is I know it needs to be a quarter

31:32 - of the mouth distance, and this tool right here will determine that for me

31:38 - by just measuring it and then flipping it over.

31:42 - I can make a mark here

31:46 - and just that fine line there

31:48 - where I'm going to cut the metal away.

32:07 - So that's what

32:18 - it will look like roughly.

32:21 - And then we'll attempt to blow through it

32:22 - and see if we get a sound.

32:26 - So it's almost there.

32:27 - There's a few other parameters I can adjust,

32:29 - which is how much weight it's getting at the table here.

32:33 - I can adjust the lower lip and the upper lip

32:37 - forward and or outward and inward,

32:41 - but since it's not quite speaking a tone, I know that

32:43 - I need to adjust that piece of metal inside of the pipe.

32:46 - So that's called the language, which adjusts the speed of

32:51 - when the note plays and are just going to knock down like that.

33:01 - so that's pretty

33:01 - much where I would voice it to as far as getting them all cut up,

33:05 - because that's the most labor labor intensive part about my job.

33:10 - So I'll do that 61 times for every note from as big as an eight foot

33:15 - pipe down to these little tiny pipes right here.

33:19 - So it's a very vast size difference.

33:21 - And they're all different measurements.

33:23 - So this helps it stay consistent throughout and everything like that.

33:27 - After that, the pipes go over to the voicing

33:30 - just and I have some more of the voice in place here.

33:34 - So all 61 those will go on here for fine tuning.

33:38 - And this this is essentially just like a small play organ in the shop.

33:43 - So I can play all the notes and here how many sound together.

33:53 - So here I would just

33:56 - put them all in tune and turn them.

33:58 - We move this color up and down, depending on the tone and the pitch of the organ.

34:04 - So I heard a tune

34:11 - that you can hear it rolling now.

34:14 - So that means it's out of tune.

34:16 - So put it back into tune.

34:24 - And that's essentially what I'll do it

34:25 - just to make sure everything's taking on its fullest potential.

34:29 - And then once it goes to the organ, I will see all the place

34:34 - where they're going to live for the rest of their life

34:36 - and make sure they're speaking of their full potential when they're in the job.

34:40 - So to sum up, we want to make sure we're clear.

34:42 - No two pipe organs are alike and no two acoustic environments are alike.

34:47 - So if Megan demonstrated how we voice pipes, she mentioned 61

34:51 - pipes or 61 pipes and each rank or set of pipes,

34:55 - how many ranks Two pipe organs customarily have.

34:59 - There is no customer.

35:00 - They're all based

35:01 - on the scale of the room and the space that we have to to work in.

35:05 - But a small instrument, like a little 1898 organ,

35:08 - which is a small instrument, is ten ranks of pipes.

35:11 - So 61 times ten, 610 pipes.

35:14 - So a voice her like make just describe how to do the 610 times

35:19 - large instruments like Wanamaker's or like she has 33,000 pipes.

35:24 - So you have to do the same process she does to 33,000 pipes.

35:28 - But the average pipe organ, somewhere between three and 5000 pipes

35:32 - and the process you describe is applied equally to large and, small

35:52 - room.

35:56 - As we conclude our visit to our workshop,

36:00 - I want to take you into the field, into one of our most recent installations.

36:04 - We're here at most places, Sacrament Parish in Ballet, Pennsylvania,

36:09 - a very distinguished and historic church in the countryside.

36:15 - The building was built in 1835,

36:18 - and we just recently installed

36:21 - an example of one of our new instruments, incorporating historic materials

36:25 - from the old instrument that was built here in 1799.

36:30 - We incorporated the old materials into the new instrument

36:33 - to create something new and everlasting for this parish

36:38 - from far.

37:11 - As we conclude

37:12 - our visit here, I want to discuss with you

37:15 - the for families of tone is very important and all good pipe organ design.

37:21 - We have the string tone,

37:27 - flute tone,

37:34 - principal tone

37:41 - and read tone.

37:45 - I also want to point out to you that this stop here,

37:51 - the flute is from the original 1799

37:54 - instrument.

39:09 - We hope you've enjoyed the visit today.

39:11 - Feel free to contact us by website at W

39:15 - WW dot PJM organs dot com

39:19 - PJM organs dot com like us on Facebook.

39:24 - You can also contact the shop by phone at 610 9709817.

39:30 - We're located in Stowe, Pennsylvania.

39:32 - Feel free to contact us if we can help you with any of your pipe organ needs.

39:36 - Whether it's new instruments, rebuild, old tuning service or even consulting.

39:41 - We're happy to help with the King of Instruments.

39:44 - Thank you for.